KING REIGNS
Nets can’t keep up with James
CLEVELAND — After beating the Knicks last week, LeBron James had crowned himself the King of New York. On Wednesday, he tyrannized the Nets, torturing them like extras in “Game of Thrones.”
The Nets beat the Cavaliers last month at Barclays Center, but James made sure it didn’t happen again at Quicken Loans Arena, taking over the game late and single-handedly carrying his team to a 119109 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 20,562.
With the score knotted at 99-all with 4:50 to play, James scored all but two of the Cavs’ points in a 20-10 run to close the game. Kevin Love had the first point, Dwyane Wade the last, and James lit the Nets up for the 18 of his game-high 33 points inbetween.
“My team looks at me to be that scorer now,” said James, saying he used to alternate that responsibility with Kyrie Irving. Now he shoulders it alone, and was more than enough for Brooklyn to deal with.
“Right now my teammates look at me and they’re like, ‘OK, this is your quarter. You’ve done this for your whole career. Let’s make some things happen.’ It was very important I tried to come through for them.”
With Trevor Booker hurt, the Nets ran DeMarre Carroll, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (team-high 20 points) and even Joe Harris at James. They tried switching, and not switching. James even needed to go to the locker room for stitches with a cut above his lip.
Then he came back and sliced up the Nets (6-11).
“You just try to stay out of his way and do your job defensively. … We executed and then Superman did his job,” said Wade, who joined Love with 18 points.
“He took over. There’s no other way to put it,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said. “We didn’t ever find a solution to stopping him in the fourth quarter.”
Unlike their recent slow starts against the powerhouse Celtics and Warriors, the Nets didn’t give this one away early, but instead lost it late. Or rather James took it.
“There ain’t too much you can do. It’s just one of those nights,” Carroll said. “We competed. We’ve just got to figure out how to close out games.”
Brooklyn was down 16-7 after a James 3pointer, but his missed dunk up 18-10 seemed to spark the Nets, and they came back to lead 46-45 at the break.
They led 50-45 when James went off the floor to get stitches, and 69-62 when he came back with 4:33 left in the third after Hollis-Jefferson’s step-back jumper.
Cleveland retook the lead with a 14-3 run, Wade hitting a reverse layup to put the Cavaliers (11-7) ahead 83-79 with 10:03 to play.
Harris — who played with James in Cleveland from 2014-16 — had 18 against his former team, and made a baseline drive to tie it at 99-all with five minutes left.
But that’s when Love’s foul shot broke the tie, and James’ dominance broke the Nets’ collective backs.
“I put a lot of work into my craft, and I believe that every shot I take is going to go in,” said James, who took over when the Cavs finally slowed down the frenetic Nets into Cleveland’s preferred half-court pace.
“We did a good job containing him until that point,” Harris said. “But he shows why he’s the best player in the world and took over down the stretch.”